The high number of longterm unemployed people (over one million) is one of the biggest problems on the German job market. The longer people have been without a job, the harder it is for them to find work. Many employers are reluctant to hire the longterm unemployed because they consider them to be lazy and unmotivated. For the unemployed that don’t have a proper education, or who have a physical or psychological handicap, the prospects are particularly bleak.
What happens to these people?
The EU-funded project ‘Prima Mallorca’ is organized in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (in the former German Democratic Republic) in order to support this army of unplaceable characters – humans with disadvantages, whose chances on the job market are zero. Forty people, chosen from all age groups, embark on what may be the biggest adventure of their lives: a ten-week internship program on Mallorca. They are supposed to gain experience within local restaurants, the animal shelter, call-center or in the kindergarten. They have to learn to cope with a new environment, and broaden their horizons.
The first challenges already start in Germany: before the participants fly to Mallorca they have to attend daily Spanish courses: for ten weeks. And more than half of the participants will board an airplane for the first time in their life…
During their stay in Mallorca the temptations of fast entertainment and cheap beer is omnipresent. Participants have to be strong-willed to resist all of these temptations, and be on-time every morning at their employers to do their internships (their ticket to a new life with a job).
The film tells the story of both young and middle-aged people who don’t accept the fact that they cannot find work, and take the bull by the horns by participating in the project ‘Prima Mallorca’. Following this process, we experience very closely how it feels to exist without a job, without money, and without hope for a better future in a society that claims to be social. We give these people a platform, address their fears and doubts, but also their hopes for a better and more happy life.
Out of the forty participants that travel to Mallorca we follow five representative protagonists through the whole project. All participants have a physical, mental or social handicap. They experience exceptional difficulties on the job market.
Information material
Die Arbeitsmarktsituation von lang-zeitarbeitslosen Menschen 2017